Ari Gold, the Hollywood super-agent with a manic determination to get the very best for his clients—and himself—never quits. He also doesn’t care who he has to crush in the process. The HBO show that revitalized Jermey Piven’s career might have been named after the eponymous entourage for Vincent Chase (Adrien Grenier)—the up and coming actor inspired by the experiences of the show’s creator, Mark Wahlberg—but the real star of the show was always Piven’s cutthroat Jewish agent. And he has three Emmys to prove it.

Piven’s Wahlburg is real life super-agent Ari Emanuel—currently at the helm of the William Morris Endeavor agency, one of the film and television industry’s leading talent agencies—and like him, the fictional Ari’s subversive effectiveness in the business is legendary. But so is his nonapologetic approach and incessant sarcastic mockery—something that became one of the show’s staples when taken out on his long-suffering assistant, Lloyd (Rex Lee), who is ridiculed relentlessly for his sexual orientation and Asian heritage.

It’s easy—and right!—to be offended by Ari’s insults and abuse, but it’s your dislike for him that makes watching his outbursts so enjoyable. There’s a reason Ari outshines the show’s ‘movie star,’ but this hardly makes him a banner of Jewish values. Then again, like any number-crunching Jewish businessman, Ari has a humanizing Achilles’ heel—his wife (Perrey Reeves).

Known simply as “Mrs. Ari” until the show’s final season, his wife is the only person who can bring him to his knees, begging for forgiveness. Such penance made for one of the most memorable episodes, “Return of the King,” which took place on Yom Kippur. Entourage never shied away from Ari’s Jewishness—his daughter’s bat mitzvah became a business opportunity for Ari to showcase his star client as the cake cutter—but Ari never seemed to take it seriously and often used it as shtick in his tirades.

The episode saw Ari belligerently pestering a producer during a Yom Kippur service to try to secure a movie deal, only to see his aggressiveness lead to its destruction. Admonished by Mrs. Ari for popping a breath mint and robbed by her of his phone (and the backup he hides in his sock), Ari even tells his daughter that the beauty of Yom Kippur is being able to sin during that day and apologize by sundown.

Hollywood is, perhaps, a better place to be a Jew than many other industries, but Ari still treats it like a crutch more than anything else. His need to barter and think only about business on Yom Kippur not only ruins his deal, it also shows his lack of appreciation for his religion. When he needs to find a way to get to the producer’s synagogue and realizes that he has no cash on him, he concludes “Like our desert-dwelling ancestors, we walk.” Ari’s Judaism is, like everything else in his life, a bargaining chip, something to help him achieve greater success.

But Ari is not without redemption, and the series finale finds him abandoning his life of work and quitting his job to show his wife how much he cares for her. But then, after the credits, Ari received a phone call offering him the job he always wanted: heading a studio. Now that the Entourage movie that no one asked for (in the words of Vulture’s Josh Wolk, “The only logical explanation for an Entourage movie is that Mark Wahlberg … is taunting everyone who vocally disparaged his show in its later years”) has been confirmed, Ari is coming back. Well, as long as too much sushi doesn’t stop him.

Previously on Network Jews:

Police Detective John Munch on Law & Order: SVU

Dr. John Zoidberg, the Klutzy Jewish Crustacean on Futurama

Jean-Ralphio, the status-obsessed sidekick on Parks and Recreation.

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Let’s be real. While the end of election season might mean respite from seemingly endless political ads and closure and all that, for people like us, who learned about democracy from watching The West Wing (no, we’re not talking about the Burmese government), it means all the drama and excitement from the past however-long-it’s-been is over, and it’s time to get back to reality. (It also means yet another year has gone by where we couldn’t vote for Jed Bartlett, the two-term president portrayed by Martin Sheen in The West Wing.)

Here to help you through election season-withdrawal—at least until the inevitable HBO movie comes out—are your favorite politically-minded TV Jews:

The West Wing’s Toby Ziegler, from “Sorkin’s Jews of Yore,” Sam Knowles:

The most liberal of Bartlet’s staffers, hyperarticulate, a master of high and low tongues, Toby is not one to suffer fools lightly. He’ll start a shouting match with just about anyone, including the president. And he is undoubtedly the most Jewish Jew to grace a Sorkin show—which is to say, he can identify not just Yom Kippur but also Erev Yom Kippur. In one episode, he even goes to temple!

The West Wing’s Josh Lyman, from “Sorkin’s Jews of Yore,” by Sam Knowles:

Josh is one of those Jews who comes to us by way of Connecticut. In one memorable episode, Toby says to Josh, “You know, the Ancient Hebrews had a word for Jews from Westport. They pronounced it Presbyterian.” Zing! Josh may lack Toby’s storied Jewish pedigree, but he has other things to boast of: the ear of the president; a legion of adoring followers who confess their lust on a tribute site called LemonLyman.com.

The Good Wife’s Eli Gold, from Abe Fried-Tanzer’s Network Jews:

It’s no coincidence that Gold has been compared to a real-life famous Jew with a similar profession. Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff for President Obama, and brother of Ari Emanuel, the basis for Entourage’ssuper agent Ari Gold, has quite a reputation for winning at all costs, and Gold has managed to earn that same status in what could easily have been (and originally was) merely a guest-starring role. Gold may reinforce the stereotype of Jews wanting all the power, but he’s definitely someone you’d want on your side.

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, from Jacob Silverman’s Culture Kvetch column:

As even the most casual viewer of The Daily Show can glean, Jon Stewart is capable of coupling wit and erudition to corner an interviewee or savage (a video clip of) a graceless politician—though he’s much more comfortable settling into the position of the bemused naif. Ignorance comes in numerous guises, and if one were to create a Donald Rumsfeld-like taxonomy, Stewart would be placed under “cultivated ignorance” (the known unknown). He’s done the reading, but he’s perpetually just a little bit in over his head, and he knows it; hell, he delights in it. That’s part of his charm.

(Flag image via Shutterstock)

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I don’t care about food. Sometimes, I’ll forget to eat until three or four in the afternoon, at which point I’ll go to one of two cafes and get the same sandwich I always get. I often have the same meals day in and day out, with only the slightest variety in high-carb intake: instant mashed potatoes, seven minute pasta, raw cookie dough. If I ever tell you I’m going to cook for you, it will be a grilled cheese sandwich, maybe with a flourish of avocado if I’m feeling fancy. Beyond, needing it to live, food is just not a priority.

Growing up, however, I was told that God cared very, very much about what I ate. It was so important that God, and rabbis doing his bidding, created an elaborate set of rules to make sure I kept my body pure. Keeping kosher (kashrut, whatever) is ultimately the greatest divide between Judaism and Western Society, a day-to-day reminder that to be Jewish is to Not Be other things. Big Macs are not yours, Red Lobster is not yours, the food of a hundred other cultures from a hundred countries is not yours, nor are you to touch a piece of it. You have kugel.

I still keep kosher. I have, however, given up most of the other religious beliefs I was raised with. That makes me a kosher atheist, and I’m not the only one. A recent profile of Ezekiel Emanuel, wonder-doc and brother of Rahm and Ari, reveals that he, too, is an atheist who keeps kosher. Lisa Miller picked up on this, and questioned his eating habits in the Washington Post. Determining that Emanuel’s own reasoning is “wobbly,” she concludes that the real reason an atheist would observe these dietary laws is because—wait for it—they aren’t atheist at all! Rather, keeping kosher is a way to remain in contact with the “transcendent parts of life,” whatever those are. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be an atheist. She writes:

Usually when a person ditches religion, he or she also happily ditches the antiquated rules and regulations that go along with a strict observance of faith. Good-bye, stupid rules about who can have sex with whom, and under what circumstances!

Really? That’s what people are thinking about? I’d never claim to speak for anyone else, but my own coming out as an atheist was nothing but painful. I grew up in a proud, loving, religious community. Every aspect of my identity was defined by a religious Judaism: not just who my friends were, but every person I knew, and every activity I participated in. Maybe there’s nothing unique about being raised religious in America, but I remember every detail of it. A lot of that rests on food: Friday night dinners, seders, getting the toys from Happy Meals without the burger.

I also remember slowly starting to realize that none of it was for me. As a kid, I had assumed that no one actually prayed, and when I realized otherwise, it started to become clear the whole God thing wasn’t for me. The summer before college, the big question among the students at my yeshiva was who would stay religious and who wouldn’t. For many, the answer was clear: some were already sneaking in trips to In N’ Out Burger during lunch breaks, and others were going to Israel. It wasn’t until I entered my college dining hall, 3,000 miles away from home, that I first grappled with the question myself.

Faced with endless food options, I backed myself into a pizza-filled corner. I had no fully formed opinions about religion, but figured that I could play it safe by eating only pizza. Breakfast, lunch and
dinner, that’s pretty much how it went for that first year. On spiritual autopilot, my only real crisis came when I won concert tickets—for a Friday night show. Panicked, I called a high school friend, who asked me to weigh what was more important: one night’s fun or 5,000 years of tradition. It was an odd comparison, I thought, but I ended up choosing the latter.

Soon after that, a family friend back home, and a pillar of our synagogue’s community, died suddenly. I ran to American University’s Kay Spiritual Life Center to pray, but as soon as I opened the siddur I realized I felt emptiness in what I was doing. These were words written by wise men from the Middle Ages who didn’t know the man who died, and, even more disturbing, I knew their words were going nowhere. The idea of existence beyond the grave felt, first and foremost, false. All my past hesitations with religion suddenly made sense. I left the Spiritual Life Center knowing that I had no use for it anymore.

There wasn’t any joy in that, at all. No vitriolic triumphalism, no throwing the rule book in anyone’s face, just the knowledge that God wasn’t (and still isn’t) an idea I could accept. It was a very depressing thought, honestly. It led to hours-long conversations with my parents, since I was convinced that with one more explanation of the Jewish people I’d finally understand the concept of faith. I tried to embrace secular Judaism, a disaster which left me crying in a bookstore holding a copy of Hannah Arendt’s Jewish Writings. All I had left were the rules.

And then those fell, one by one. Keeping Shabbos was the first to go; the joys of Saturday Netflix came easily. Hanging out with a mainly Jewish crowd also quickly fell out, as all the kids who went to the Hillel were assholes. It became clear that the thousands of years of tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax, just didn’t mean a whole lot to me.

The one thing that remained were those sticky dietary laws. They felt removed from the culture they had come from, as if my parents had conjured them out of thin air. I was lonely on the opposite coast, and picking out what I did and didn’t eat gave me a tangible connection back to the warmth of Los Angeles. Months became years, and I eventually realized that I had stopped eating meat altogether.

In the profile, Emanuel plays coy about why he still keeps kosher, stating that “Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not the same.” I’m pretty pleased with that obnoxious non-answer, mostly because it reflects my own uncertainty as to exactly why I keep these rules. Acquaintances are routinely shocked (shocked!) when I tell them I’ve never had the slightest curiosity about oysters, pepperoni slices, or that holiest of holies, bacon. Maybe someday, but I doubt it. And my knowledge about vegetarianism extends as far as the liner notes to Moby’s album 18 (he makes a pretty convincing argument about utilitarianism and the world’s resources).

A friend suggests that Emanuel does what he does because “it annoys people,” which makes sense to me. It’s a way for us to embrace our parent’s traditions and communities on our terms. I wish Miller would look past hokey terms like “transcendental” to describe decisions to remain involved in religious communities. I eventually came to realize that just because I was giving up yarmulkes and the six hundred and thirteen mitzvahs didn’t mean I had to lie about who I had grown up with. Keeping kosher is a concrete way to keep alive the ties to the people who raised me—my parents, my friends, my first community. And there’s nothing more real than that.

Art by Margarita Korol

The post Why I Gave Up God But Still Keep Kosher appeared first on Jewcy.

Gold wields his Judaism as a weapon instead of letting it hold him back in this stereotypically Jewish profession. He’s the type to feign offense at what he could concoct to be an insult or a slur, name-checking his heritage to exact leverage on an enemy when necessary. More than anything, he wants to win, whether it’s an election, a petty rivalry with a law partner, or a match of wits with his ex-wife’s new campaign manager.

The well-dressed Gold is actually played by a rather peculiar Scotland native, Alan Cumming. Known for his flamboyant nature, double entendre name, and pronounced eye makeup, Cumming is the complete opposite of his onscreen persona. The only small trace of the actor in his character is a tendency to get overexcited when passionately talking about something, which usually causes Gold’s carefully styled hair to move independently of his body. Gold is much more normal—and straight—than most of the characters that Cumming has played, and it’s somewhat shocking to discover that he’s just as fascinating when he’s buttoned up.

Gold addresses his Judaism only when provoked, and, since he works in politics, Israel comes up often. He is stubborn and opinionated, and it’s no surprise that his teenage daughter, Marissa (Sarah Steele), would inherit those same qualities. When she suggested that she wanted to move to Israel, Gold promptly rejected the idea as preposterous. Talking up Israel and name-checking his Judaism is largely superficial—Gold is definitely more of a ‘High Holiday Jew’ who’s not particularly observant.

In one example of the show’s constant mirroring of headlines in its plot lines—which have included social networking site scandals and Ponzi schemes—Gold found himself pulled in opposite directions as a metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Though the primary thing holding Gold back from defending a Muslim student accused of killing a Jew is the threat of losing financial support from a prominent Jewish group, it’s hardly as deplorable as it seems. Gold may not be subtle about his motivations, but being honest doesn’t make him a bad person. Being cunning and conniving just puts him one step ahead of the rest of the crowd. He may be shrewd and greedy, but unlike most Jews on TV, Gold is far from nebbishy. Anyone watching would rather be him than be one of the people he yells at on a given day.

It’s no coincidence that Gold has been compared to a real-life famous Jew with a similar profession. Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff for President Obama, and brother of Ari Emanuel, the basis for Entourage’s super agent Ari Gold, has quite a reputation for winning at all costs, and Gold has managed to earn that same status in what could easily have been (and originally was) merely a guest-starring role. Gold may reinforce the stereotype of Jews wanting all the power, but he’s definitely someone you’d want on your side.

Previously on Network Jews:

Howard Wolowitz, the nerdy, sex-obsessed engineer on The Big Bang Theory

Paris Geller, Rory Gilmore’s high-intensity, over-achieving friend and foil on Gilmore Girls

Kyle Broflovski, South Park’s Resident Jew

When he’s not working in the world of Jewish outreach, Abe Fried-Tanzer can be found blogging away about movies and television.

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Gabrielle Emanuel, niece of former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Hollywood power agent Ari, scored a Rhodes scholarship and The Daily Beast thinks that should cement the families standing as the Jewish version of the Kennedys.

We at Jewcy are really excited about having a dysfunctional political dynasty that we can relate to on a ethnic level, and really hope this is the final kick in the pants that Rahmbo needs to fix up his frumpy wardrobe, and maybe buy the family a yacht to sail on Lake Michigan.

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